Bad Business - Texas Corral

Out and about today we drive past a Texas Corral and since my dad usually enjoys the Texas steakhouse kind of spots we decided to stop in .

 I touch on restaurants \ food service a lot since eating is done several times a day for most and I like to examine the restaurant industry since it is one of the hardest to survive in.

This industry is beyond touchy. One bad meal and you lost a customer for ever. And lets examine that for a moment. If you give me an un-enjoyable experience at your restaurant I am writing about it on my site that reaches thousands but on a local factor you lost me and my wife, also my father and anyone else that eats out in  our group. Before you know it you just lost 10+ people because no one wants to go to a place with bad service when there are so many good steak houses in town like Texas Roadhouse and Logans why risk it.

Add insult to injury I opened the Texas Corral website while reading back over this and it crashed my Internet Explorer so everything below this I had to rewrite as my auto save didn’t save it fast enough.

Our meal went something like this. Arrived at 2:30pm and noticed not a lot of cars in the parking lot since around here by 2:30 Texas Roadhouse is already hopping. We get seated and it wasn’t a great sign to hear two others having issues with their meal. Drinks come and and we order I also ask for a straw and the waitress disappears for 15min on a smoke break I assume to only walk by and go oh I forgot the straw. The straw comes and another 15min goes by then the manager comes by without apology just to update us that the meat for the burger was frozen which is why we have the delay and it will be up shortly.

Being the business review and wanting answers kind of guy that I am I have to ask, what time did you open? She replies 11am. I start to think why over 3 hours isn’t enough prep time to get “warmed up” as if this is the first set of 5 in tennis.

The meal arrives 15min later without an apology, my fathers steak is very tough and not cooked correctly and once we ask for the bill it is another 10min for someone to come back.

All and all if you see bad wait staff then chances are you have poor management and if you have poor local management chances are seeing they are a smaller chain that they don’t have a seasoned district manager in place to get things done right.

A good lesson to learn for businesses, keep your customers happy at any cost. I know it is hard to admit your company has screwed up but it is easier then explaining to your friends and family that you went out of business. I always say just take your lumps and do what is right. Your customers will appreciate it and return one day.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!